In office life, there are no juniors and no senior, what we have is work. In this environment, it becomes difficult to converse in Hindi, as the language is punctuated by “Aap” and “Tum”, where “Aap” is to show respect and “Tum” is to show your high authority. Hence, both words become politically and emotionally hard to speak.
Though the usual thumb rule is to, use “aap”, to those who are elder, and “Tum”, to those who are younger. But thumb rule is not practical, because none of us human are born with those age sensing senses, and our other indirect ways of age sensing, like wrinkle and white hair detection, fails in this cosmetic age.
I have started the rule that guys, with whom you meet often, call them “AAP”, and the guys, with whom you meet, regularly, call them “TUM”. But this again failed, as I find that, there are no colleagues or regular mate that happens in colleges. All there is are projects. Sometimes, you meet a guy regularly, when he is involved in projects with you, but when the projects get over, the meeting gets converted into once, then what “aap”, or “tum”. Call me hypocrite or Machiavellian.
The solution to this problem lies in ENGLISH (The complete “respect neutral” language). With no “ji” , no “aap” , and no “tum” . It is no surprise, when we see a heavy use of English, across offices all over India, in spite of having the largest per capita languages in this world. English, do not arouse respect nor demean the respect of the listener. Here action precedes the object (English – SVO, Hindi – SOV order). The language did not change, in presence of junior or senior.
But in India, speaking English has other dimensions. Everybody in India wants to speak English, the :bachelor wants English speaking wife; the parents think of their sons speaking fluent English; the waiters are told to speak in English, even if they don’t know the meaning and even amitabh bachan trying to mimic English in Namak haram. The reason is not the reason that I seek for, but the irony is, it is spoken to entice respect from the listener. As speaking English, and the degree of fluent English, that you can speak, shows not only how much literate you are, but how much “polished” and “sophisticated” you are. Hence we see the need of English speaking people in Banking, retail and all the marketing jobs, but not in Engineering.
In engineering, if I start speaking English: –
1> It will alienate people
2> I would be regarded a snob
3> And to add to all this insult, they will call me, that “I am preparing for MBA”, so may be start being look with pity. Poor guy, with a wrong job.
As high sophistication or literate people are rarely required in engineering, well all they need is a technically sound people, rather than pompous sounding guy. Hence English don’t work.
I don’t find any solution to the problem except cutting the cause of the problem. Like an evil dictator who hangs any voices of dissent, I too will make my heart cold and my mind numb, while dealing with juniors and seniors. DEVIL MAY CARE